VOID was, for all intensive purposes, the first real band where Tai and I collaborated. To be even weirder in the whole mess-o-incestuous, the lead singer of VOID, Danny Elias, was dating Jess Frantz at the time and Nate Patterson was the only other bass player they auditioned (besides yours truly).

I seem to remember that Johnny Askew (keyboards) and Danny decided VOID was the most poetic word in the English language.

We practiced, we fought, we fought about girlfriends coming to practice. Finally, we scrapped together enough money to get into a recording studio to cut three demo songs.

And those are currently here under the title “An Occasion For Sausage,” since I was eating a summer sausage during the single-day recording session (that’s all we could afford).

I wrote a little about VOID in the past for the “Evolution Of A Song: Sancho” post, which will be re-posted in it’s entirety sooner or later. Until then, let’s look at what I had to say about VOID and “Fallout” the lead-off demo song on An Occasion For Sausage:

download link “Fallout” by VOID off An Occasion For Sausage

I don’t remember how Tai and I both got involved in VOID. I’m pretty sure that Tai was poached from ADIAN, our semi-successful rock band. ADIAN was always more concerned about the lifestyle associated with having a garage band, right down to actually rehearsing in a garage and getting really high before practicing. Tai and JD, the drummer would have minor spats about just how good JD was while high. That’s really what I can remember about ADIAN’s practices.

At some point, ADIAN played a show with one of the many VOID incarnations. VOID was started by Danny Elias and Johnny Askew, two singer/songwriters with certain reputations. We’re talking about a very enclosed world here: Monarch High School and the various bands that were fighting for turf amongst the small student body. Everyone knew everyone else, knew some of their songs and knew who was worthless and who played their instruments well enough.

Long story abbreviated, Tai and I matriculated out of ADIAN and into VOID. It’s unclear how important of a move this was for our musical career as, yes, it was a small world, but I beat Nate in a series of bassist tryouts to secure my spot and at the time, we would tell Danny not to bring his girlfriend to practices, and his girlfriend was Jess Frantz, who I was still unaware of.

VOID buckled down and became as serious as a high school band could be. Where as ADIAN was all about wearing makeup, going to parties and singing songs about fire and cows, VOID practiced at least three times as much and pooled together enough money to record a demo (which you can listen to in its entirety here) and buy a sound-mixing board.

When VOID inevitably broke up, Danny Elias took the mixing board that we were supposed to auction on eBay. The money would be split between Ty, Johnny, Brady (the drummer), Danny and I, but Danny ended up selling the board for coke money.

I haven’t seen Danny since.

The VOID “single,” if there was one, was “Fallout” a proto-metal song that never really kicked into a high enough gear. “Fallout” was written by Tai and Danny, officially, or just Tai if you listen to the guy that didn’t screw us out of hundreds of dollars.

Long story once again abbreviated, Tai kept the masters of the demo sessions and – with the blessing of Johnny – Tai and I took “Fallout” over to Serious Bob.

The two other tracks have brief stories:

“Canon” - Is Canon in D with Elias-written lyrics about punching a hemophiliac cop.
“Stay” - is actually a song, if I didn’t pop the pickups on my Fender Jazz bass as much as I do (”I meant to do that.”)

You can download the whole 3-Song VOID demo, An Occasion For Sausage, by clicking the immaculately designed cover (which I made in a hurry earlier this year).